Thursday, December 21, 2006

Taking too long to rebuild?

The BBC did a report on how it's taking too long to rebuild all the houses for the victims of the Dec. 2004 Tsunami.

The UN tsunami envoy, who happens to be former President Bill Clinton, was here in Banda Aceh a little over a week ago, says:

"Only 30 to 35% of the people have been put back into permanent housing," "We have to do better than that."

Johan Schaar of the Int'l Red Cross puts it well saying:

"We said a few weeks after the tsunami that for us this was at least a five year effort. Anyone who talked about this being completed in two or three years was totally unrealistic"

Miloon Kothari of the United Nations says:

"It should really not take this long to build permanent housing. I do not accept the explanation that it is going to take four to five years, in some cases, seven. I'm an architect I know how long it takes to build a house."

Over 140,000 houses in Aceh alone? It takes more than two years. We're trying to build safer homes, we are going up against corruption, contractors taking the money and leaving, property rights, lack of skilled builders. The list goes on. Has he tried to build mass housing in a developing country before?

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About Me

I'm a structural engineer born and raised in California's Silicon Valley (San Francisco Bay Area). I've worked in structural and seismic engineering from California, Indonesia, Afghanistan, New Zealand and finally Costa Rica. Currently, my wife and I are living in San José working on a USAID/OFDA project preparing the city and central government on responding to a major urban earthquake.